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‘We The Media’

The introduction of this article did not surprise. Often times, we speak in my psychology and sociology courses of how people can recall the times when they had a traumatic experience. For many of us it is the story of September 11th. Another experience I had was one of the shootings at Virginia Tech (my school) last year. The first notice I had of it was an email from the Officer in Charge to the entire Corps stating that we were remain where we were and just notify our chain of command because there was a gunman outside. It is a large campus so gun shots on one side would not necessarily be heard on the other. I can remember the events of the day quite well. But if it wasn’t for the emails, VTalerts and Facebook updates. I wouldn’t know as fast as I did because the phone lines were jammed. Same thing when Osama bin Laden’s death and again with the missiles being fired in Libya. I got an email from the Commander notifying us and within a few hours it was all over social media. I think there is an importance to this fast communication, but there are many stories where the information is ‘leaked’ and you get half a story. It is only truly beneficial if it is the truth. But with the internet, you can never be positive. Can never be too careful.